


Stitches

by Lirazel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-17
Updated: 2007-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>There will be no scar this time.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitches

Her hands are steady and gentle and sure, and he barely feels the needle. He can’t count how many times he’s been stitched up after a job: by Dad, with his Marine competence; by Dean, whose hands shake even if neither of them acknowledge it; by disinterested doctors and nurses; once even by Pastor Jim, who prayed with each stitch. And always they left scars. And always he gritted his teeth and thought about anything but the push and pull of the needle, and always the blood rushed away from his head and left him light-headed and nauseous.

Not this time. This time the stitches are even and neat and tiny, made with care. This time he feels the brush of her fingers against his shoulder, the warmth of her breath against his cheek, the slide of her hair against his skin.

He concentrates on those sensations, on the sound of her voice rising and falling. The words are unimportant to both of them; they are mere distractions. He is barely aware of her description; he hears only disjointed words here and there: she is telling him how she goes about restoring a painting, how she makes dull and faded bright and vivid again. She’s telling him about patience and silence and research and layers and cleaning and reweaving and beauty in detail, about restoration.

And these words, these ideas, are so strange, so unlike anything in his life that he almost does not recognize them.

His life is destruction and breaking down and tearing apart, gunpowder and whetstones and sweat and blood and the stench of fear. Winchesters don’t know how to mend, how to put back together again, only how to lose, how to destroy. And perhaps they destroy the things that destroy lives, but they don’t know how to live, not really—they forgot on November 2, 1983. Now they only know how to survive.

Her world is the opposite of his in every single way, but when he hears her speak, he catches a glimpse of the person he might have been had he not had the life he had.

If he had not had that life, though, he would not be here, now, and neither would she. He would not know the understanding in her eyes, her scent, the silk of her skin. She would not be teaching him how to live, how to create a life. She would not be putting him back together again.

She snips the thread and sits back. _All better_, she says, and he is.

There will be no scar this time.


End file.
